Becoming compatible: Curriculum and environmental thought

The author argues that the predominant reliance in environmental education (EE) on the traditional scientific or research, development, and diffusion (RD&D) model of curriculum development maintains the present emphasis in schools on factual or empirical questions about the environment and views curriculum change as training teachers to adopt ideas and behaviors determined by external authorities. As such, this model neither provides an appropriate framework for addressing the questions of definitions and values involved in environmental issues nor recognizes that curriculum construction is shaped by the relationships between teachers’ own educational theories and practices and their school context. The author examines two alternative curriculum theories for addressing these concerns.